U.S. patent application number 10/287235 was filed with the patent office on 2003-05-29 for method for recovering the data of a logic cell in a dce system.
This patent application is currently assigned to International Business Machines Corporation. Invention is credited to Legros, Claude, Melot, Michel.
Application Number | 20030101256 10/287235 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 8183427 |
Filed Date | 2003-05-29 |
United States Patent
Application |
20030101256 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Legros, Claude ; et
al. |
May 29, 2003 |
Method for recovering the data of a logic cell in a DCE system
Abstract
A method for recovering data of a cell in a Distributed
Computing Environment (DCE) wherein each cell includes a server
associated with a database, a DCE administrator workstation with
DCE administrator software for managing the cell, and a plurality
of users being included in at least one organization. This method
comprises the following steps which are automatically performed by
the DCE administrator software after initialization by the
administrator workstation: a) generating for each organization, the
DCE commands necessary for recovering all data associated with the
users included in the cell, and b) building an executable program
comprising the generated commands and data associated with each
user included in the cell, the executable program being used to
restore or duplicate the cell.
Inventors: |
Legros, Claude; (Gattieres,
FR) ; Melot, Michel; (Saint Jeannet, FR) |
Correspondence
Address: |
David R. Irvin
IBM Corporation T81/503
PO Box 12195
Research Triangle Park
NC
27709
US
|
Assignee: |
International Business Machines
Corporation
Armonk
NY
|
Family ID: |
8183427 |
Appl. No.: |
10/287235 |
Filed: |
November 4, 2002 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
709/223 ;
714/E11.125; 714/E11.126 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06F 11/1464 20130101;
G06F 11/1466 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
709/223 |
International
Class: |
G06F 015/173 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Nov 23, 2001 |
EP |
1480120.3 |
Claims
We claim:
1. A method for automatically recovering the data of a cell in a
DCE system comprising at least a cell and wherein each cell
includes at least a server associated with a database, a DCE
administrator workstation associated with DCE administrator
software for managing the cell and a plurality of users, said users
being included in at least one organization; said method comprising
the following steps, which are automatically performed by said DCE
administrator software after initialization by said administrator
workstation: generating for said at least one organization, DCE
commands necessary for recovering all data associated with the
users included in said cell; and building an executable program
comprising said generated commands and data associated with each
user included in the cell, said executable program being used to
restore or duplicate said cell.
2. The Method according to claim 1, wherein the step of generating
includes the following steps for each organization: generating DCE
commands necessary to create said organization; listing all users
belonging to said organization; generating DCE commands necessary
to add each user to said organization; and generating DCE commands
to create user characteristics of the users.
3. The method according to claim 2, comprising the following step
performed before the step of generating DCE commands to create
characteristics of the users: getting a group within said
organization to which said user belongs.
4. The method according to claim 3, further comprising the step of
building a set of files containing both DCE commands and data.
5. The method according to claim 4, used to backup data belonging
to users and data used by the DCE administrator to manage the users
of said cell.
6. The method according to claim 4, used to duplicate a cell,
further comprising the step of installing a new cell and
configuring DCE software server code on a server of said new
cell.
7. The method according to claim 6, further comprising the step of
reworking data of said set of files in order to take into account a
naming convention specific to said new cell.
8. The method according to claim 7, wherein said set of files is
converted into an executable program.
9. The method according to claim 8, wherein said executable program
is sent to the new cell being duplicated in order to be executed.
Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The present invention relates to a Distributed Computing
Environment (DCE) system wherein the users, machines and resources
are distributed in a plurality of logical cells, and relates in
particular to a method for recovering the data of a logical cell in
a DCE system.
BACKGROUND
[0002] A Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) system runs in an
AIX environment on a client server mode wherein a distributed
application is divided into two parts, one part residing in the
user workstation and the other part residing in the server which
manages data for several users. The server and the associated users
constitute a DCE logical cell which is therefore a collection of
machines, users and resources managed by a server. For example, the
system could be an organization made up of several departments
located in different buildings and operating on their own budgets.
In such a case, each department could be associated with one
logical cell.
[0003] A DCE cell can be configured in many ways depending on the
users' requirements. Generally, a cell consists of a part of a
network connecting three kinds of nodes: the DCE user workstations,
the DCE administrator workstation which is provided with DCE
administrator software enabling a DCE administrator to manage the
DCE system services in the cell, and a server machine. The Server
machine is generally equipped with special software enabling it to
provide several DCE services and appears as several servers such as
a Cell Directory Server (CDS) listing all the objects present in
the cell, a Distributed Time Server (DTS) keeping the clocks of all
the machines in the cell, and a Security Server providing the
security in the cell. Other server functions may also be present in
the cell such as the server function enabling the CDS of the cell
to communicate with the CDS of other cells.
[0004] In order to maintain the integrity of data in the cell,
backups are made periodically. These backups are necessary in case
the server crashes or in case of hardware or software problems. The
only way to retrieve the data is to restore a full backup (system
backup) since two kinds of data must be considered, the data
belonging to the users and the data belonging to the DCE system to
manage users. A full backup is also required when there is a need
to create a new DCE cell in order to manage supplementary users. In
such a cell duplication, after installing and configuring the DCE
software code on the server of the new cell, the DCE databases have
to be built on this server. In both cases of backup/restore or
duplication, the users cannot work during all the time taken by the
operation. Therefore, such an operation cannot be made frequently
in order to avoid stopping the user work, thereby resulting in the
risk of losing data within the interval between two backup
operations.
SUMMARY
[0005] Accordingly, an object of the invention is to achieve a
method for automatically recovering the data in a DCE cell which
allows users to continue working during the backup operation.
[0006] Another object of the invention is to achieve a method for
automatically recovering the data in a data cell wherein there is
no full backup operation but only the backup of the data contained
in the databases without the backup of the structure of these
databases.
[0007] The invention relates therefore to a method for
automatically recovering the data of a cell in a DCE system
comprising at least a cell and wherein each cell includes at least
a server associated with a database, a DCE administrator
workstation associated with DCE administrator software for managing
the cell, and a plurality of users included in at least one
organization. This method comprises the following steps which are
automatically performed by the DCE administrator software after
initialization by the administrator workstation:
[0008] a) generating for each organization, the DCE commands
necessary for recovering all data associated with the users
included in the cell, and
[0009] b) building an executable program comprising the generated
commands and data associated with each user included in the cell,
such an executable program being used to restore or duplicate the
cell.
[0010] An advantage of the method according to the invention is
that it can be performed frequently, for instance every night, thus
limiting the risk of losing data within the interval between two
backups.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0011] The above and other objects, features and advantages of the
invention will be better understood by reading the following more
particular description of the invention in conjunction with the
accompanying drawings wherein:
[0012] FIG. 1 is a block diagram representing schematically a DCE
system including several logical cells wherein the method according
to the invention may be implemented.
[0013] FIG. 2 is a flow chart representing the steps of the method
according to the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0014] Referring to FIG. 1 a DCE system wherein the invention may
be implemented is divided in a plurality of logical cells such as
cells 10, 12, 14 or 16 which are all connected to a network 18 such
as an Intranet network.
[0015] Each logical cell such as cell 10 includes several user
workstations 20, 22, 24 connected to network 18, an administrator
workstation 26 also connected to network 18 with access to a
library 28 containing the software necessary for the administrator
to manage cell 10, and a server 30 connected to network 18 with its
databases 32. These contain the software enabling the server to
provide one or more of the DCE services upon request from a user.
Note that server 30 can designate several server machines including
several servers such as a Cell Directory Server (DCS) listing all
the objects present in the cell, a Distributed Time Server (DTS)
keeping the clocks of all the machines in the cell, and a Security
Server providing the security in the cell.
[0016] One of the databases 32, the Registry database managed by
the Security Server, is essential for the method according to the
invention since it contains all the user data to be recovered.
[0017] The Registry database contains 5 kinds of objects. The first
object is the "Organization". It supports two kinds of attributes:
the Organization attributes which consist of the organization name,
the Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) and the organization
identifier which may have default values or not, and the Policy
attributes which regulate such things as account and password
lifetimes for all accounts associated with a particular
organization which have a default value set for the Registry as a
whole with the registry modify command.
[0018] The second object is a "Group" which contains members called
"Principals" and "Accounts" which are the third and fourth kinds of
objects. The "Account" object is identified by a principal name and
includes specific attributes such as client, organization, groups,
etc. The "Principal" object includes specific attributes such as
alias, user ID, full name, etc. The fifth kind of objects is the
"User" object which represents all the data associated with a user,
that is the Registry information and a CDS directory in the default
implementation. This object allows the administrator to easily
manage "Principals" and "Accounts" or delete them if necessary.
[0019] Referring to FIG. 2, the method according to the invention
can apply when it is necessary to recover the data of a cell, that
is in case of backup/restore or in case of duplication of a cell.
First, the tool which is stored in the library 28 at the disposal
of the administrator workstation 26, lists all the organizations of
the cell (step 40), that is extracts the data defining each
organization. For each organization, the DCE commands necessary to
create the organization are generated (step 42) and stored into a
specific file.
[0020] Then, for each organization, the tool lists the users
belonging to this organization (step 44), that is extracts the data
associated with each user and generates the commands necessary to
add each user to the organization (step 46), these commands being
then stored in a specific file. For each user, the tool gets its
characteristics and particularly the group to which the user
belongs (step 48), and the DCE commands necessary to create the
group, the account and the principal associated with the user and
to add the user to the group are generated (step 50) and stored
into a specific file.
[0021] Then, a check is made to determine whether the user being
processed is the last one (step 52). If not, the process returns to
step 46 of generating the commands to add the DCE user to the
organization. If the user is the last one of the organization, a
test is made to determine whether the organization being processed
is the last one (step 54). If not, the process returns to step 42
of generating the commands for a new organization of the cell.
[0022] When all the organizations of the cell have been processed,
a set of files containing all the DCE commands necessary to recover
the cell and containing all the user data is built (step 56). At
this stage, it is checked whether the purpose of the processing is
a duplication or a backup/restore (step 58). If it is a
duplication, a new cell has to be installed by configuring the DCE
software server code and building the structure of the DCE
databases (32) of the new cell server (step 60). Also, the data
obtained in the set of files have to be reworked in order to take
into account the naming convention specific to the new cell (step
62). Finally, the set of files reworked in case of duplication or
not in case of backup/restore are converted into an executable
program which can be sent to the cell for being executed on the
server of the cell (step 64).
* * * * *